As we move closer to confronting Iran for all sorts of reasons, including their President’s slight stature, members of Congress from both parties couldn’t wait to pile more sanctions on the people of Iran and anyone who wants to trade with them.
Today the US House overwhelmingly passed H.R. 1400, piling on the sanctions and racheting up the war hysteria. Only 16 members of the House voted against it. Party leaders on both sides of the aisle lined up behind the Bush policy on Iran.
The pack of thugs commonly called the U.S. House of Representatives has gone into a shark-like blood frenzy. Unable to restrain themselves for fear of having the Stalinist glare of approbation cast Mordor-like in their direction, they vie to outdo one another in making the most grandiloquent and maudlin denunciations in the daily two-minute hate. The behavior of these miscreants reminds me of a passage in a book by Robert Conquest on the Ukrainian terror famine, describing a meeting of the Ukrainian Bolsheviks gave a standing ovation for Comrade Stalin that went on for an interminable period. People started to look around to see who would grow tired of clapping and thus be open to charges of treason to the Leader. People began sweating as the strain of clapping began to overcome them, but no one dared to stop. I forget exactly how the ridiculous farce ended, but at least it didn’t start a nuclear war. The House of Representatives most likely won’t stop their frenzy until the nukes are en route.
No one wants war but sometimes it is a necessary evil. I actually admire everyone who fights for peace but sometimes in order to have peace we must face conflict. As the old saying goes, if you want peace be prepared for war.
Here is the main point: Please pay attention! Radical Islam is not acting based on reason or logic, they are religious fanatics, zealots, who will stop at nothing, including killing themselves, in order to get what they want. Now the real question should be WHAT DO THEY WANT?
Well, Bin Laden, Aymen Al-Zwahiri and the rest of the bunch are very clear. Pull out of Iraq? Yes. Pull out of Saudi Arabia, yes. Destroy Israel? Yes. But that IS NOT ENOUGH for them! They say in their own words that we must all CONVERT to ISLAM in order to have peace. They want to DESTROY the United States and all of western civilization. That is their stated goal and we have to face it and stand up to it.
No one wants war. War is horrible and unholy and evil in every way. But…
Do you want to live under Islamic Law? I don’t. As Patrick Henry said “Give me liberty or give me death.”
Krushchev said that he would bury us. He had missles and nukes – lot’s of them. He had massive armies, navies and air forces. Didn’t happen. “Radical Islam” (you’ve been listening to too much neocon drivel) has virtually no resources. And radical Muslims (why are they radical?) would have exponentially fewer converts if U.S. pols would mind their own business and quit trying to rule the world. As for Patrick Henry’s quote, a more apt one for the country that put Bush into office TWICE would be from Ben Franklin – “Those who would trade essential liberties for a little temporary security deserve neither liberty or security”. And that’s what we’re getting.
Carter, you’re confused.
Re: Russia
Kruschev was referring to burying the US economically. As for avoiding war, look up Mutually-Assured Destruction (MAD).
Re: No Resources?
Do you remember those bastards crashing 4 planes after hijacking them with box knives? You want to talk about resources?
Re: Security
I agree.
if you truly believe that people with boxcutters constitutes resources than i guess they do have a lot.
Really Tim, you have to make the sarcasm a bit more obvious otherwise some people might think you are dead serious. Nice post though.
I find it odd that Tim lumps Iran in with “radical Islam†when the language of “radical Islam†is that of Sunni Wahhabism, which is antithetically opposed to the Shia regime in Iran (as well as other “heresies†such as Sufism, which is why the majority of Chechen Sufis are staunch Russian loyalists). In fact, Iran has lost thousands of policemen and soldiers fighting the Taliban and Afghani drug smugglers for the past decade. To lump in Iran’s Islamic nation-state (note not a caliphate) with these post-political Islamist dreamers is so imprecise and rude an association that it does not pass basic common sense.
As I say, only a f***ing American can be so f***ing stupid.
Of course it’s odd, because you’re assuming he’s educated. In fact, he’s an ignorant oaf, who wouldn’t know a Shia from a Sunni from a Tibetan Monk.
Abraham,
Ad hominom attacks are usually made by people who can’t defend their positions on substantive grounds.
I wonder who is uneducated? Have you read the Quran? Check out verses 9:5, 9:33, 8:12, 47:4, and 8:67, amongst many others. As to the fact that the Shia sect is generally “less radical” than the Sunni sect, well are you aware that the overwhelming majority of Muslims in the world are, in fact, Sunni?
Are you aware of the spread of Islam through violance and bloodshed that happened pretty much since Islam’s inception? Are you aware that this “peaceful” religion was spread by the sword and by the year 750 these Islamic Fascists had fought their way all the way into Spain?
Do you know what a Dhimmi is and that under Islamic law if you don’t accept Islam you must pay tribute and are a second class citizen? Anyway, I know I am an “ignorant oaf” so you probably knew all this already.
You make it sound as though there are only two choses and all the evidence is in. It’s either we live under Islamic law or we go to war with Iran? I know it’s been a long time but you must remember the rhetoric before we invaded Iraq. How much of that “intelligence” turned out to be true? Follow the wisdom of the enlightened…… not the merely patriotic…..or paranoid.
Tim R., you are full of, um, falderal. Ahmadinejad has made it clear that he has no intention of attacking anyone, including your precious Israel. And are you are aware that he’s not even in charge of the Iranian military?
Moreover, as for the idea that we in America are in any danger whatsoever of being forcibly converted to Islam by the Iranians is just asinine.
Israel’s existence is not imperiled by Iran. Israel’s grandiose ambitions for territorial expansion and lording over the rest of the Middle East in perpetuity may be imperiled by Iran, but loyal Americans shouldn’t give a rat’s ass – much less a son or daughter, or a gazillion dollars – about that.
It is possible and desired that the good people of the Holy Land and Persia should live in peace in that part of the world.
I agree with you Adam…………sneds
They want reason and logic from our foreign policy… Wake up please.
Tim, I have a suggestion for you that might just clear your head and allow you to escape from the Platonic cave you are now in: turn off “Fox News!” Then I suggest you do something akin to what Descartes did:
“I HAD long since remarked that in matters of conduct it is necessary sometimes to follow opinions known to be uncertain, as if they were not subject to doubt; but, because now I was desirous to devote myself to the search after truth, I considered that I must do just the contrary, and reject as absolutely false every-thing concerning which I could imagine the least doubt to exist.”
Tim,
If you we are going to be a real world power we should as a people learn more about the world. Why is it that the general American public can’t understand the difference between Sunni’s, Shiite’s and extreme sects in each of these groups?
Iran is not the radical Islam of Al Qaeda nor the resistance in Iraq or the US propped up monarchical dictatorship in Saudi.
Before you run scared of a neocon created boogie-man and lump every Muslim as a suicide bomber terrorist take the time to learn the history and intricacies and realize that the situation is more nuanced than you currently understand.
According to some, Iran is not radical like Bin Laden and the Sunni Muslims. If Iran is not radical why do they bury women up to their necks in sand and then throw stones at them until they are dead? All for crimes relating to sex? If that is not radical, please tell me what is?
And you somehow conveniently forget that Iran has been the most consistent anti-Taliban and anti-Al-Qaeda state in the region. The fact that the Wahhabis hate Shias and terrorize them doesn’t seem to percolate through that solid block of bone you call a brain.
Iranian theocracy is an eminently modern project in adapting the Islamic religion for the structure of the modern nation-state. Numerous positions (birth control, for instance) have been debated and revised according to pragmatic needs. Just a couple of years ago Iranian women’s movement won the right of abortion. And here’s another little fact for you. Thanks to the free education and literacy programs of the Islamic Republic, today in Iran more women than men are currently enrolled in higher education, and many women are doctors, engineers, and scientists.
This is all within the framework of a somewhat circumscribed parliamentary system. By no means is this form of government perfectly functional, and they have a whole litany of problems to work out, but in no way is the political project of the Iranian Revolution comparable to the millenarian “return to the society of Mohammed†post-political rhetoric of the Wahhabi-influenced Al Qaeda.
TL if you think Iran is so great, why don’t you move there? And take the rest of the parasites who live in America but who hate America with you. Good riddance to bad rubbish I say.
And when did I say it was a haven for gays and women? All I indicated was that Iran is hardly static or monolithic and is not, as you so crudely put it, part of “radical Islam.â€
When confronted with facts, you can only fall back on your chest thumping superpatriotism. America should be ashamed of people like you lacking even two brain cells to rub together.
Tim,
Are you even out of puberty yet?
No one wants war..please. They were talking about entering Tehran way before the latest Iraq fiasco officially started.
August 11, 2002: Bush’s Advisers Advocate Attacking Saudi Arabia, Iran, Egypt, and Other Countries
Edit event
A Newsweek article suggests that some of Bush’s advisers advocate not only attacking Iraq, but also Saudi Arabia, Iran, North Korea, Syria, Egypt, and Burma, shocking many. One senior British official tells the magazine: “Everyone wants to go to Baghdad. Real men want to go to Tehran.â€
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=complete_911_timeline&geopolitics_and_9/11=centralAsia
It’s not about nukes or terrorism, this is about domination. Controlling the middle-east…so it’s hardly a liberation program.
You cannot think Papa Bush and his Carlyle partners don’t want war, unless you obviously haven’t done your homework.
You believe the fake bin Laden tapes, but not the real ones.
You think steel skyscapers fall in minor fires, but never in a major infernos.
Please do your homework.
Tim R.,
Please. Enough. You are such a f**king obnoxious tool.
The Gulag Archipelago, vol. 1 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
A wonderful post. Thank you so much.
The Resolution was introduced by Mr. LANTOS (for himself, Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN, Mr. ACKERMAN, Mr. PENCE, Mr. SHERMAN, Mr. ROYCE, Mr. BERMAN, and Mr. SMITH of New Jersey).
Mr Lantos is a well known Congressman whose historical role as the Israel Lobby’s enforcer in Congress is well known ( a role being taken by Ram Emmanuel).
The others are all in the Israel Lobby’s pockets. For example, Congressman Sherman’s website, reads as if it was intended for Jewish Israeli audience, and not his California constituents – the first header in this personal website reads:
“Supporting Assistance for Israel
In 1999, then Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu proposed a formula for regular aid from the US to Israel during each year of the coming decade. I am pleased to report that in 2005 Israel will receive the full amount requested under the Netanyahu formula. More specifically, Israel will receive $360 million in economic assistance and $2.22 billion in security aid.
In addition, Israel will receive $50 million to assist with the resettlement of Jewish refugees from countries where they face hostile conditions…
…The President has requested $2.28 billion in military grants, $240 million in economic grants, and $40 million in refugee assistance for Israel for 2006….”
It seems Americans are so used to this type of behavior, they find it normal for a US Congressman to have a description of his actions on behalf of a foreign power listed FIRST amongst his accomplishments? Funny.
Thanks for informing us of this. I wasn’t already pissed off enough as it is.
“No one wants war.” One of the biggest lies ever.
I’m glad and totally unsurprised that Ron Paul voted against this idiocy. What surprises me is that 15 other congress critters had the balls to stand against it as well. I’m disappointed that Kucinich abstained, though.
Kucinich abstained? What else might one expect from someone that looks like Howdy Doody, bancrupted Cleveland in the 1970s and precised over the city’s first ever Cuyahoga River fire? Two or three years ago, Dennis sold out on life questions, today he sells out on peace. Not much of authentic humanity remaining to Dennis, I’m afraid. We can safely avert our gaze.
John Lowell
The only real vote is Paul obviously.
You know, Kucinich might have been out of town at the time of the vote. It would be very unusual for him to abstain from a vote like this. On these issues Kucinich votes the same as Paul,
MORE RACIST “WESTERN SUPREMACISTS”!!!!!! THERE HAS LONG BEEN A SIGNIFICANT AMOUNT OF UNDERGROUND FASCISM IN THIS COUNTRY. NOW ITS BUBBLING UP OUT OF THE GROUND LIKE CRUDE OIL…BLACK GOLD…TEXAS TEA! THIS COUNTRY IS RUN BY THE LIKUD PARTY! WE ARE DOING TO THE IRAQIS WHAT ISRAEL HAS DONE TO THE PALESTINIANS! IRAN IS NEXT! THEN….
Isn’t it rather bubbling up like “The Stuff” from the movie with the same name – it’s tasty and everyone who partakes in it is soon transformed into a horrific zombie.
Yes, I have extensive knowledge of obscure psychotronic movies.
Thanks for the logic which is constantly posted on this site, I wish more people would read it.
I’d like to throw in my two cents: last year I travelled to Iran to see what the fuss was about. About two weeks before I left, Israel and Lebanon went to war. I thought I couldn’t have chosen a worse time to go to Iran.
I still went, however. And guess what: nobody tried to convert me to Islam, nobody attacked me (I didn’t expect them to, just trying to dismiss some close-minded people’s beliefs). In fact, people were generally more friendly to me than people from my own country (Australia).
Sure Iran isn’t Paradise, but it’s a long way from the evil empire the West portrays it to be.
I am quite sure that the vast majority of Persians are decent, peace-loving people.
In Iran gays are executed. Even teenagers and children.
Women are murdered by being buried alive and stoned to death for adultury.
All candidates for office have to be pre-approved by religious tribunals.
All women are subjugated and forced to wear head scarves.
Please tell me if this is not an evil empire, what is???
Before anyone talks about gays being executed, one must note that the case that Tim is so eloquently referring to involved a charge not of homosexuality (for which flogging is a common punishment) but of child rape. There is no law in the books that mandates capital punishment for being gay. The 12-year-old boy those two men were accused of raping had rectal scarring, so you can go figure your own conclusions.
Goddamnit, you’re annoying.
OK TL, so if Iran is such a bastion of tolerance and they believe in the rights of women’s rights and LGBT rights, how come we don’t hear of women or gays wanting to move there? How many women, in their right minds would want to live there? How many gays would want to live there? If its such a great country why do you live there TL?
Tim,
Why don’t you concern yourself with the gay-hating members of your beloved Republican party before you worry about what some other country half way around the world is doing?
Have you ever heard of Matthew Shepard? At least the gays Iran hanged were given a trial.
It’s ok. The do nothing congress and idiot president are going to spend spend spend and send our men and women to die, meanwhile the country is going to go down the drain because of massive debt, no health care, collapsing housing market, recession, devalued dollar, religious zealotry, etc.
Eventually we wont have the power to do all this horrible crap in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Iran. We just gotta wait it out.
Down the drain? No health care? We have one of the world’s premier health care systems — it’s why people come here for treatment. Devalued dollar and collapsing housing market? Usually you don’t have both. So please pick one and screech about that. Religious zealotry? Only the people of the vast backward interior are so stupid — doesn’t affect those of us in civilized areas.
The government’s ability to wage all these wars will fizzle out, of course, but that has nothing to do with the US “going down the drain.” It just has to do with the laws of economics catching up to the insane spending of printed and borrowed dollars. When the US govt is no longer able to pay back bonds, people will stop buying them. But we’ll have to wait and see.
Jeremy,
Perhaps it’s semantics, but the last reports I heard indicate that the US housing market is not looking good (“will get worse before it gets better…”) and the dollar has lost value against most other major currencies.
Adam, you write that anyone contemplating attacking Iran is dangerously deluded so you don't believe there will be a (another) war. Unfortunately most neocons, as well as their Republican political base, are irrational Zionists, whether Christian or Jewish. They'll never tolerate a serious obstacle to Israeli expansionism. If Bush doesn't attack Iran, Israel will. Negative repercussions in the US such as a draft, higher taxes and gasoline prices mean nothing to Israelis. I don't own a farm, but if I did, I'd bet it on an irrational, unwinnable war with Iran.
If we go to war with Iran, it will be a war for Israel not the American people. Once the war reaches these shores, and it will, Israel will be despised more than it could ever imagine. Joe Six-Pack America has no clue this war is coming, but once it does, the hatred will be phenomenal. FoxNews’ over-paid blowhards will have no influence over a populace that can’t feed itself or pay to get to work. This is how WWII started on March 24, 1933″[ see http://americandefenseleague.com/judea_declares_war_on_germany.htm ], four days before Hitler retaliated with his March 28, 1933 address. The antisemitism will be venomous with no forgiveness, no sympathy. It will make the illegal immigration issue look like a two-hour hiccup. If we go to war with Iran, it will be Israel’s death sentence, as the Torah predicted. What, just what, are these people thinking of?
Some people have a deeply ingrained hatred of Israel. That’s ok, its a free country and you are free to be a bigot. But let me ask you something, if you think the Muslim radicalism started because of Israel, why is it that the Muslim Fascists were making war long before 1948?
Oh yes, the Muslim Fascists have been attacking way before 1948, in fact over a THOUSAND YEARS before. When Islam got started in the 7th century it was spread through violence and bloodshed. The Muslim radicals spread their violence and religious insanity as far as Spain before they were turned back.
So since Israel did not even exist back then, nor the Untied States for that matter, who do you blame for it?
See, what folks like you don’t understand is that the Muslim Fascists got started in the 7th century and they are still fighting.
Tim,
Why do you hate America?
I do not believe that there will be a war against Iran. Anyone seriously contemplating such a move is dangerously deluded. These machinations are just sabre rattling designed to contain any agressive ambitions by the Iranian regime. Iran as a nation is a far different proposition than Iraq.
What is interesting is that during the terrible Iran-Iraq war of the early 1980’s when hundreds of thousands of predominately young men died, there were certain people in other countries who were quite satisfied with the slaughter that took place.
The Iranians have a long memory…
Adam, you write that anyone contemplating attacking Iran is dangerously deluded so you don’t believe it will happen. Unfortunately most neocons, as well as their Republican political base, are irrational Zionists, whether Christian or Jewish. They’ll never tolerate a serious obstacle to Israeli expansionism. If Bush doesn’t attack Iran, Israel will. Negative repercussions in the US such as a draft, higher taxes and gasoline prices mean nothing to Israelis. I don’t own a farm, but if I did, I’d bet it on an irrational, unwinnable war with Iran.
Adam……..contact me……….SNEDS
LMAO, just listen to the Bush puppets. No matter what their television tells them, no matter how many times they’ve been lied to and played for suckers and fools, some people just don’t learn.
Remember when Cons insisted the US attack Iraq? It’s the UN’s fault! It’s France’s fault! It’s Saddam’s fault! It’s Iraq’s fault! It’s liberals’ fault! One excuse after another for their own actions.
New line: It’s all Iran’s fault! It’s all Syria’s fault! It’s all the Iraqi peoples’ fault! It’s all the media’s fault! It’s all…whatever. One excuse after another for their warmongering. NOW their television points to a new ‘enemy’ – and the puppets are screeching for war again. Sad.
http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2007/roll895.xml
what was Kucinich doing that was more important I wonder. Ron Paul seemed to find the time.
LHinkley,
Perhaps taking an AIPAC check to the bank or performing an abortion. You know Dennis, anything to save a life.
John Lowell
1941. Sans declaration of war, Japan attacked a clear threat to their empire (the US), with an air bombardment of an active US naval base. Most Americans – correctly I believe – saw (and continue to see) that attack as a criminal act, and one of extreme cowardice.
2007. Iran is absolutely no threat to the US. Yet somehow a disturbingly large amount of Americans think bombing the hell out of Iran is somehow a noble and necessary undertaking.
Have so many of us really sunk so far?
It’s shameful. What a bunch of cowards.
Senate just passed the Kyl-Lieberman amendment, 76-22.
If anyone thinks there’ll now be any meaningful resistance to an attack on Iran they’re sure to have been living in a cave somewhere over the last two years. The whole thing, the whole sick mindset just presses forward inexorably, it’s scary. The chasm between the American people and the vermin that govern them and their utter powerlessness to offer significant opposition in the teeth of the bellicosity and the provocations become increasingly obvious. One is reminded of Hitler’s meeting with his generals at the Berghof in August of 1939 and his comment to them, “My only fear is that at the last moment some swine will come to me with an offer of mediation”. There in a nutshell is the spirit guiding present events. We will deserve the calamity that is sure to emerge from such a spirit. What’s sad is that the Iranian peole won’t.
John Lowell
Looks like the NeoVermin (neo”conservatives”) may yet get their way and kick off WWIII with a mass murder attack on Iran. Apparently, they believe they will be around when the smoke clears to steal the property of the fodder units (people) who will die in this war they are starting. Think: Hitler demonizing people who had property and wealth (Jews) so that they could be removed to slave labor camps leaving their property free to be STOLEN by Nazi vermin. I’m trying very hard to see any difference between Nazi mass murderers and the NeoVermin mass murderers — and I can’t.
Here’s a Daily Kos Poll where so far 69% of respondents call for institution of a draft.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/9/26/75654/5471
(scroll to bottom of post)
Tim R says: As the old saying goes, if you want peace be prepared for war.
And if someone wants to remain a virgin, should they be prepared to f*ck?
Well, it’s the Iranians fault for having the nerve to live on top of all our oil.
Old joke.
397-16.
And they wonder why their approval rating is at 29%.
(Still astonishingly high IMHO)
Thanks Conyers and Paul for seeing through the BS.
Thanks Kucinich for at least NOT voting for this horse pucky.
Radical Islam is to Islam
AS
KKK is to Christianity
PeaceSeekers comments imply that radical Islam is only represented by a very small minority of Muslims. This could not be further from the truth! Read the Pew Global Attitudes Research Project, co-chaired by former Clinton Sec. of State Albright. It polled Muslims in many different countries. It finds that very substantial minorities and in some cases, majorities of Muslims are radical and support suicide bombings and hold Bin Laden in high esteem. It is not just a few crazy people. It is A LOT of crazy people.
show me your source text for the women buried to their necks and stoned. Do some work instead of verbal masturbation Tim.
Rowan, the history clearly shows the intent of Muslims to conquer the West. ( Darius vs. Greece, Cartagena vs. Rome,
Moors vs. Spain, Turks vs. Europe, etc.)
Fortunately they did not succeed; The price was enormous.
If they do, they won’t be shy to do what they did for 500 years on
Eastern Europe. Ask those people for facts …. then maaybe the vote is in the right direction.
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